Ultra Street Fighter IV

[IgTerminals]

I just saw Book of Mormon.

It was excellent.

That is all.

[jiroczech]

I shoulda wrote you guys a form letter. "Dear ____, stay free! Here's your tat. Luv Jiro x x x"

[Qazimod]

Geegs to Haggar and Donut for yesterday's fightings; sorry for the wild connection issues D:

I think I'm supposed to be somewhere tomorrow evening, but Daytime Fighter may still be an option...

[cale]

??

[Qazimod]

!!

[JLM]

More like CAIROczech!

Wait, we're not doing that any more are we.

The Madcatz unveiled event on the 21st looks amazing, mostly because the main event is Daigo vs Valle. Possibly the longest running rivalry in competitive fighting gaming, and of course a runback of what may be the best Streetfighter IV set to date from SoCal Regionals 2010. I don't know what the format is but I hope it's first to 500.

[ah]

And character locked just to make sure we get what we came for!

I have had a bad day and if I'm still awake in half an hour I'd quite like to try and make it worse by losing lots of games of street fighter and/or any other fighting games, so if any of you are online then watch out for my ragemailz.

[JLM]

I will. I have new Oni things. I should be playing Chun to practise for the tournament, but if I don't then I have a better excuse for not winning it.

[ah]

You should totes pick Blanka if he resets the bracket.

Yeah, I said totes - that's an indication of just how into that idea I am. It's the next step on the path to becoming fully esports and it's a step you must take.

[JLM]

I may do that at Sunday Face Off. I don't think anyone there has seen me play Blanka so it'd be a good surprise/dickhead pick. Also, since I posted that I had new Oni things, I have also added new Seth things. They are really really stupid things and I am determined to land them in a fight now.

[Nate Dogg III]

The Madcatz unveiled event on the 21st looks amazing, mostly because the main event is Daigo vs Valle. Possibly the longest running rivalry in competitive fighting gaming, and of course a runback of what may be the best Streetfighter IV set to date from SoCal Regionals 2010. I don't know what the format is but I hope it's first to 500.

OH SHIT

That's at PAX East, the night before PAX East proper. I am going to PAX East and arrive the night before PAX East proper.

OH SHIT

[ah]

JLM was last online 1 minute ago.

I'm beginning to think that it deliberately shortens the time to 1 minute whenever it thinks it can get away with it just to heighten the feeling of loss.

[JLM]

What, I'm still here, I assumed you'd gone to bed. Waaaait.

[JLM]

GGs Allystah, some fun matches before a housemate returned and started murdering the bandwidth. Two of my four new Seth things are as non-legit as I thought they were, but thankfully the other two are combos so I have a 50% success rate from my twenty minutes of training mode with Seth.

I landed a couple of my new Oni things and also botched another one horribly. Next time.

[JLM]

It's not a grudge match and there isn't any animosity from either side, they've just been playing each other in high profile matches for years and years and they always have great matches. There's obviously mutual respect between them, they both play a very similar style and in the 90s and particularly the Alpha 3 days they were the top players in their respective countries at a time where these international showcase matches were less common. Valle was America's equivalent to Daigo when he was coming up. He was one of the few "name" players in fighting games, he was one of if not the best playeer in his country, he was famous for his mastery of shotos, he played a super solid fundamentals style with hard reads mixed in, and when he played against international opposition it was a big deal. All these parallels between them and the sheer length of time they've been on the scene makes them natural rivals and gives any match between them a bit of extra significance.

It's a long running competitive rivalry, and Daigo does have the lion's share of the wins but Valle is very rarely completely outclassed by him and Daigo speaks very highly of him as a player. To be able to hang with Daigo at all in Ryu mirrors is a testament to just how good Alex Valle is at pure Streetfighter fundamentals.

I don't really see Valle and Justin as big rivals at all. Although Justin has excelled in loads of games, he made his name in Marvel 2 on the East Coast. MVC2 was never a big game for Valle and they were also at opposite ends of the country. They played each other in Third Strike but it was never a particularly big rivalry there either. Justin's rivals for me are Yipes and Sanford.

[JLM]

I'm not entirely sure what your point is. Nobody is claiming that Valle is Daigo's biggest rival, his toughest Ryu mirrors opponent or historically his most difficult opponent generally. All I said was that Daigo vs. Valle is one of the oldest match ups and longest running rivalries in competitive fighting games, which it is. Rivals don't have to be the number 1 and number 2 player in the field or even competitive equals. If there is competition between them they can be rivals, and there has been competition between Daigo and Valle for a long long time. They know each other well, they match up well, their matches have a bit of added significance because of their history. It's not a grudge match (nor is anyone portraying it as one) but it's more than a random match between two people. If it's the use of the term "rival" that's your objection then I think we're just using it differently in this instance, and I don't think I've been using it how you think I have.

This is all splitting hairs anyway; I'm looking forward to it because their last high profile match at SCR2010 was one of the best SFIV has produced and them running it back in a longer set is an exciting prospect.

Also here is an Oni thing:

I usually use ultra 1, but I only recently discovered that the above juggle is actually a thing after seeing Shinochan do it in a match. Naturally I thought I'd better start doing it because it looks fancy.It's not new or massively useful, it was just new to me and I like it.

[Qazimod]

Rllmuk lobbies have the best rivalries

I didn't play any Super Street Fighter 4 Aieee yesterday, but Curtis did drag me into a Strekken lobby for my sins.

[JLM]

I saw you playing Strekken. I bought the DLC characters and have played as Sakura for approximately twenty minutes since doing so. It has not been a sound investment.

[cale]

I rewatched the SCR 2010 Valle / Daigo match again after reading the thread last night. I remembered it being excellent but hadn't seen it since the time so forgot just how excellent it is. It really is a wonderful set. As is Grand Finals which features the winner of that match v. F Champ.

[JLM]

Ha, I did too, and even though I know exactly what happens in the first two rounds I still nearly jumped out of my seat for one particular bit of clutch play. So good.

[JLM]

What a fun day of AE, VF and Strekken this has been. My plan to not spend any money on a weekend has actually worked for the first time in months.

Strekken in particular was a lot more fun than I expected it to be. Throws removing recoverable life and the generally slower recovery speed of the off screen character means every mistake is very costly and you can be killed in two or three quick combos. There were some time outs, but they only made up a small fraction of the games, with some rounds ending very very quickly indeed. It's still far from being as good as AE or as addictive as Marvel, but I'd happily put it back in my rotation of occasional fighters.

[ah]

Yes. I might be leaning towards Camel's point of view on this whole SFxT thing.

I don't think Sam is, though.

[mayor_mike_haggar]

It's bloody awful! I didn't even enjoy the match I won!

[joffocakes]

Ha; I got caught by that Oni Ultra thing before, Jellum. It's pretty excellent.

I've not played Street Fighter for two and a half weeks.

[Qazimod]

Compared to the top tier bmups, Strekken is pretty awful, but it's still fun as a silly distraction. Headset banter during 2v2 gives it a whole different flavour of fun that you can't get elsewhere, and the patch has removed some of the broken-ness so it doesn't play havoc with my sodium levels like it used to. And the timeouts only really happen if you're deliberately forcing it by running away a lot (ahem.)

[joffocakes]

I enjoy Strekken quite a bit. I did try my best to remain optimistic for the gems but I guess I have to admit I don't like them. Especially since Capcom themselves didn't have enough confidence in them to create any that matter much.

I do like the fun juggling though. But not as much as Marvel, which feels a lot more freeform with it. I do miss some of the SFxT stuff when I go back to SSFIV, though.

Also I got this on a T Shirt (though not purple):

I went T Shirt mad. I have three adventure time T Shirts, two Ghostbusters and one Arrested Development.

Is Nate going to liveblog the Capcom annoucenments at PAX East for us? They're totally not going to announce any fighting games, right? Right? But surely Darkstalkers is in with a shout? Maybe? Oh man!

EDIT: All you purists might rage at the softening filter on that Street Fighter T Shirt there. I'll make sure to buy a shirt with scanlines next time.

[geldra]

If they do announce Darkstalkers, do you think it'll be current gen or next?

Also, as an out of touch middle aged fatty, can someone explain Adventure Time to me please, in 15 words or less.

[joffocakes]

It's a cartoon. For children. It's adorable and occasionally dark. It's for children. I'm 30.

I think maybe Darkstalkers will be this gen? Though I guess being in at the start of a console generation (and being one of a limited number of titles) helps raise awareness of a franchise. I buy all sorts of shit I wouldn't normally get when a new console launches. It'd be beautiful too, right? Darkstalkers Are Not Dead video confirmed as real time rendered.

I hope the final title is Darkstalkers are not dead. I like that.

Was there ever a proper video for that teaser, rather than shaky camera phone projector captures?

[geldra]

Ah, I thought it was a comic due to the crazy amount of merchandise (and comics) in the local Forbidden Planets and derivatives.

I hope any new Darkstalkers is current gen and in the SF4 engine. As much as I initially disliked SF4 from the first few shots, I have grown to love it. On the other hand, if the next gen systems perform as well as the WiiU I might be gagging for any new next gen guff. And then never play them.

[ah]

Before the patch I think I agreed with Qazimod entirely that SFxT was a fun distraction (and the 2v2 was amazing) but not really worth playing much, but after several hours of 1v1 yesterday on the patched version I felt like I was getting into it in its own right, not just as a diversion from SF4. I theorised briefly to JLM that it was almost like seeing an alternate vision of what a sequel to SF2 might have looked like: instead of slowing the pace like SF4 did to give you several chances each round and make you focus on patient play and attrition, this game keeps the pace at about the same level as ST - the pace and damage are higher than SF4, and like ST you can really die from two wrong decisions, which is only really true in SF4 for a tiny handful of matchups. It looking like a cheap knockoff of SF4 doesn't help you do it, but if you can forget SF4 exists while playing it then it makes a lot of sense, and the system changes really do bring that difference to the fore - throws removing "red" life, rolls being more throwable, etc. Before the patch the wakeup game wasn't quite balanced right, but now you really feel in jeopardy when you're under pressure. And getting thrown when you're sitting on 20% red life is a sickening feeling.

Plus everyone used to just play the SF characters. We're still only playing SF characters (and SF4 characters at that) but a lot of the Tekken cast look like good fun too now that you actually see people using a bunch of them. I'd love to delve in and pick up one or two of them, and to see what others can do with them.

Of course, having written all that I'll probably end up not playing it again for another three months, but that hasn't stopped me proclaiming UMVC3 to be amazing :-)